This invention generally relates to the field of transporting unitary modular cell units which are useful in organizing and storing smaller items. The modular cell units serve in a similar capacity to a storage cabinet, but are employed in a hospital setting for the storage of a patient's personal belongings, clothing or medicines.
A modern hospital faces unique and expensive problems in health care and sanitation. Hospitals provide a multitude of services, each requiring improvement and each threatened by rising costs and obsolescence. Distribution of products and sanitizing medical equipment and furnishings frequently result in duplicating waste, destruction of property, theft, loss, and other problems. In order to provide good economical service, a hospital must have uniform sanitary procedures and controls. Previously, "unsanitizable" structures included most furniture, complex professional equipment, transporting devices, containers and storage units which could not easily be carried by hand. All hospital items, without exception should and need to be clearly accessible for removal of contaminated materials and for sterilization. In regard to furniture and storage devices, there should theoretically not be any seams, cracks, interior grooves, hinges, and unsealed shell interiors penetrable by air or liquid flow in order to preserve a sanitary atmosphere. With rare exception, present structures do not lend themselves to these requirements.
In operating a hospital, it has increasingly become apparent that visible physical characteristics of the patient's room or surroundings can have a profound impact on the psychological outlook of the patient. It is also well established that a happy patient generally feels physically better than an unhappy one. These obvious conclusions dictate a style for a designer of hospital equipment and furniture.
In order to be esthetically pleasing to the patient while maintaining functionality, a system of unitary modular cell units is utilized which is transportable for sanitation purposes. Each individual cell unit is capable of storing a plurality of items of various shapes and sizes in an esthetic and sanitary manner. Each cell unit is constructed of a hard, resilient, and durable plastic which allows the units to be molded as one solid piece, eliminating unsightly seams which substantially decreases the degree of impurities maintained in the structure after sterilization. Elimination of seams also tends to increase a cell unit's structure rigidity.
A plurality of cell units are used in the patient's room, which units are secured to the wall of the room by being attached to a wall rail which is fastened to the room wall at an appropriate height. The modular cell unit is secured to the wall by means of a mounting key which fits in the wall rail and is held by both by the unit's rear surface and the rail wall. As the modular units are removeable from the wall, they can be sterilized each and every time a new patient occupies a particular room. This obviuosly leads to a sanitary hospital environment in addition to preventing the transfer of disease or germs from patient to room articles to a new patient.
Additionally, the modular cell units are provided with drawers, pull trays, or shelves which slide in and out of the front of the cell unit. These storage drawers, shelves, or pull trays can be mixed and matched to provide a variety of cell unit configurations. Quite obviously, the flexibility of the units take on a plethora of functional embodiments and are a tremendous advantage to a hospital. The cell doors, shelves, or pull trays are also constructed of heavty-duty plastic and therefore, can be sterilized after removal. The system is washable and made of tough, resilient plastic so that it is able to withstand vigorous washing. The cell unit is without seams, does not have sharp corners, and is provided with drainage holes to allow water to easily drain from it so that is can be used with industrial washers for sanitation purposes.
One problem in using such large varied cell units is that the cell units must be transported from the area of use to a sanitation area or to another area. Various attempts to move such equipment have been tried by the obvious expedience of having orderlies or other individuals hand carry the structures to the sanitation area. This form of transportation is extremely costly in labor costs and insurance costs, as well as the inherent cost of damage which occurs through handling and abuse of the structures. Since the cell units are mounted on a wall rail, they have to be lifted up from the wall rail and if not hand carried to the sanitation area, placed on a cart or dolly to be trucked away to the desired area. This type of handling also causes great destruction to the units and to the trays and shelves located within the units. In addition, the units often are orientated on the handtruck so that they can tip over or fall from the hand truck. In loading a cart or hand truck, the modular cell unit has to be physically lifted by the individual from the wall rail, which lifitng requires several individuals with the attendant result of possible injuries to the individual and breakage of the units and/or their components.
Such wall mounted structures have been envisioned as being moved by forklift trucks with the operator of the truck inserting the forks into slots formed into the structures and lifting the structures off of the rail and carrying them to the sterilizing area. However, it is readily apparent that special fork mounts have to be provided on the structures which utilize a great deal of material and waste a lot of space in the hospital room. In addition, space for maneuvering such a vehicle is generally not available, so that the physical lifting requirement is again required in order that the item can be placed on the fork lift truck. In addition, the forks of the trucks quite often bang into the plastic and cause serious damage of the structures.
The present invention overcomes the prior art problems by utilizing a cart which is pushed beneath a structure and operated by a foot pedal to lift the modular cell unit off of the rail while simultaneously holding the unit in a locked position on the bed of the cart. It can readily be seen that this feature is extremely important, not only in the removal of the unit from the rail, but also in the placement of the unit on the rail. Thus, the cellular modular unit is fixedly held on the cart for vertical movement, so that items may be placed in the unit and lifted up onto the rail without displacement or destruction of internally held articles. Thus, a single individual can easily remove a heavy modular cell unit from its wall rail or place the modular cell unit on the wall rail without regard to the mass or strength of the person and transport the modular unit to any area so that a sanitary environmentally sound hospital room can be provided for the patient.